Prospectus re Admission to the Official List - Heritage Oil

enhancing opportunities and may form strategic alliances with influential local partners in its chosenregions to deliver growth in shareholder value.The Group leverages off a highly effective network of influential industry, political and institutionalrelationships. These relationships enable the Group to form strategic alliances which reduce resourcecommitments and lower exploration and development risk, as well as give the Company accessto properties.The Group’s management team has demonstrated its ability to make substantial oil discoveries and its flatand lean structure has enabled the Group to enjoy first-mover advantage in many of its deals and to takeadvantage of interesting opportunities, such as the KRI and the Albert Basin in Uganda.8. SAFETY, ENVIRONMENT, RISK MANAGEMENT AND CORPORATE AND SOCIALRESPONSIBILITYCorporate and Social ResponsibilityThe Group has always been committed to responsible and respectful conduct towards the diversecommunities in which it operates, believing that it is only through such an approach to businessincorporating economic, environmental and social initiatives that the Group’s sustainable development willbe achieved.The Group believes that in order to create long-term value for its stakeholders, partners and employees, itis imperative that it contributes to its adopted communities. Investing in local communities today isincreasingly accepted as a necessary part of doing business, especially in developing economies that lackbasic infrastructures and the capacity to build social capital as this contributes to a healthy and stablebusiness climate.Over the past five years the Group has implemented a wide range of community projects comprising publichealth, education, environmental, public facility, and community relations-based programmes. In all ofthese, the Group’s involvement was not simply to provide funds, but to actively work with the communitiesin order to build trust and ensure that both the needs of communities and those of the Group wereconsidered when the projects were planned. For example, in Uganda the Group has worked closely withlocal communities in Rwebisengo-Bundibugyo District and Buhuka-Hoima District, to build andrehabilitate roads and valley dams, drill community water wells and construct cattle dipping tanks. TheGroup has constructed and repaired fencing around a number of schools such as Makondo Primary Schoolin the Bundibugyo District and invested in schools uniforms, sportswear and equipment.The Group’s values encompass a continuous dedication to education, learning and training. To this end theGroup tailors a number of its corporate and social responsibility initiatives to be specifically educationoriented,such as examples in Uganda where the Group is building a school and teachers’ residences atBuhuka and the establishment of a Petroleum Institute for higher education collectively with other oilcompanies operating in Uganda. The Group has so far sponsored three undergraduate students for coursesat universities in Kampala, Uganda; one comes from Bundibugyo district and two from Hoima District.The Group has also trained over 65 officials from the oil ministries in Iraq and the KRI.Approximately 20 per cent. of the Group’s corporate and social responsibility expenditure is deployed innature conservation projects. In Uganda, the Group’s employees are involved in a wide variety of fieldbasedprojects including sponsorship of wildlife conservation and investment in transportation by providingfour-wheel drive vehicles and motorcycles for game wardens.From the outset of these programmes, the Group has actively engaged each community and their localgovernment in planning and agreeing the project implementation strategies and timings (the communitiesare involved at the onset of the project so that they have a sense of ownership and are able to continueimplementation of the project on a sustainable basis).Protecting the environmentThe Group is committed to protecting the environment and for every project envisaged having an impacton the environment; an Environmental Impact Assessment is usually conducted, where potential impactsare identified and appropriate mitigation measures are put in place. The mitigation measures are made50